Near Dawn

Chapter 2

Miles away another pair of eyes stared skyward, also remembering the flames from a decade before. The face, scarred and twisted by those same flames, broke into a slight grimace as the pang of hunger hit him again.

Severen had fed only enough to keep himself alive in the last ten years, knowing anything more would complete his healing process. He couldn't have that. His body would be restored by Sarah Colton and that bitch Mae. He would drain them dry while he made Caleb watch, and then he'd finish with the farm boy once and for all. He would be just like he once was, maybe better. That's how it always worked for Jessie, he remembered.

Thinking of Jessie put a smile on his burnt face. He'd spent ten years looking for a way to bring the old man back, hearing often that it was impossible, but knowing there had to be a way. Jessie had given him  immortality, brought him back from the edge of death, and he would find a way to return the favor. He thought he had found the way, but he needed to find blood.

He stood from his darkened hole beside the railroad tracks and looked once more towards the buildings on Main Street. They had been his salvation of sorts. When the truck had exploded he had been blown backwards through three layers of glass and plastic, landing in a broken and burnt huddle on a pile of clothes. It had taken a toll on him. He'd been unable to move until he'd heard the sirens. Police were not friends of his, so he knew he had to hide.

He'd left the broken, smoldering storefront and ran for shade, the sun rising quickly at his back. He had just dropped into a manhole when the sun broke free of the horizon. He lay there, disgustedly thankful for the river of cool waste water he'd landed in. That was when he felt Homer die. For a moment he was the little turd, running down the road, chasing Mae and his prize, and then he was back under the street in his own body, feeling the burning pain within his head as well as his body. Severen had had three deaths that day, but none had been his own.

It had taken him days of mourning to convince himself to climb out of the cesspool he'd fallen into and feed again. At first he'd taken only a few mouthfuls, just enough to keep himself afloat so he could get to the Colton farm and see the place his family had died. He could see the black mark Homer had made when he exploded onto the road, the ashes scattered in the wind. Their car had gone off the side of the road, spilling the ashes of Jessie and Diamondback into the scorched grass.

Severen had crept silently up to the Colton family farm, finding two empty jars in the open barn. The wind shifted as he left the barn, bringing the scent of burnt flesh to his nostrils. He'd followed it, finding the burnt out car stashed behind the garage. Opening each door as silently as he could, Severen scraped the ashes into the separate jars, trying to separate them evenly where they met and returned to the road to add the ones there as well. He'd sealed the jars tightly and returned to the barn to bury them deep in the ground along the rear wall, giving his family as proper a burial as he could, hoping beyond hope he could find a way to reverse the process.

Ten years later, he stood on the edge of the farm that now belonged to Caleb, looking into the window that he knew was their bedroom and seeing them standing there, staring at the sky like a pair of mindless oafs. 

He slipped closer to the house, staying in the shadows, his eyes on Mae. She had gone human again, like Caleb, and the last ten years had begun to show on them both. She looked his way as the moonlight shifted, exposing part of his face for a moment. Mae jumped in Caleb's arms, a tiny yelp escaping her mouth as she realized what she'd seen. Caleb looked down as he slid back into the shadows, darting out of sight of the window, listening as she explained that she'd seen something in the shadows. That should shake things up for them a bit, Severen thought as he paid his respects to the makeshift graves, as he had often over the last decade.